Comments on: Comment of the Dayhttp://www.theagitator.com/2011/01/30/comment-of-the-day-7/
It rankles me when somebody tries to tell somebody what to do.Thu, 29 Jan 2015 14:59:44 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1By: JORhttp://www.theagitator.com/2011/01/30/comment-of-the-day-7/comment-page-1/#comment-606534
Tue, 01 Feb 2011 23:03:25 +0000http://www.theagitator.com/?p=18979#comment-606534BSK, I have a feeling that a lot of that sort of stuff grows out of the rhetorical commitment to “personal responsibility” in popular libertarianism, and in American pop culture generally. It’s fairly easy to get people into macho or libertoid-posturing their way to more and more ridiculous positions. In mainstream pop culture, you get rape apologists and badgelickers who claim with a straight face that a victim of cop-perpetrated cold-blooded murder brought it on themselves (because they believe in “personal responsibility”, you see; those people shouldn’t have provoked the poor rapist/cop). Among libertarians, you sometimes get people arguing that there’s nothing unlibertarian about defrauding someone or hiring a hitman to kill somebody.

The truth is that, much like “thinking for yourself”, everyone supports “personal responsibility”; they just disagree about whose thoughts are correct or how to decide who is responsible for what. “Personal responsibility” is just another way to hide moral disagreements in neutral-sounding, non-moral, empirical terminology.

]]>By: “Our Donations Are Different” | The Agitatorhttp://www.theagitator.com/2011/01/30/comment-of-the-day-7/comment-page-1/#comment-603966
Tue, 01 Feb 2011 01:15:43 +0000http://www.theagitator.com/?p=18979#comment-603966[…] that your donors don’t abide in the real world. (But don’t mind me, I’m just the useful idiot in all of this!) I suppose the honorable thing would be for those of us in the free market movement […]
]]>By: BSKhttp://www.theagitator.com/2011/01/30/comment-of-the-day-7/comment-page-1/#comment-603912
Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:48:50 +0000http://www.theagitator.com/?p=18979#comment-603912James, Highway, Random Guy-

Thanks. That summed up my initial beliefs, which is why I balked at that guy initially. But he was so steadfast, as were his supporters, and I saw no one else disagreeing, I thought maybe I just got it wrong. I think reform is necessary, but to me, hashing it out (if done fairly) seems to be the best remedy in most scenarios.

Several years ago, I read about a survey performed with people leaving polling places (don’t recall the methodology, so not sure how “scientific” the survey was). They were asking people to take the world’s smallest political quiz. If you’ve taken the quiz, you’ll recall that libertarian, authoritarian, liberal, and conservative were mapped to the 4 corners of the quiz chart, with centrists mapped to, handily enough, the center of the chart. Of these 5 divisions, centrists had the highest percentage of respondents, libertarian was 2nd. BUT, what the survey also found, was that prior to taking the quiz, a HUGE majority of people in all 5 groups had never even heard the term “libertarian” as a political philosophy. So we’re not as alone as you think.

“They” argue against us because liberty is a powerful message and they don’t want it to catch on. Plus, many people who may agree with us on one topic, and think that it’s OK for individuals to decide for themselves on that topic, will have another topic that they want to impose their choice on the rest of us, and they’re willing to use the government to do it. They don’t see forcing the rest of us to select from only the choices that THEY approve of as oppression. Many of them will refuse to see it as oppression even when you point it out to them. The amount of calories they burn (as you put it) arguing against the libertarian view in such a situation is the defense mechanism they use to avoid the cognitive dissonance that results. They’re not trying to convince us, but are trying to continue to convince themselves. But if you can burn through the defense mechanism, and get them to confront and overcome the cognitive dissonance, you may win a convert. So keep up the discussion, in a calm and rational manner (no matter how intense their invective gets), and you can win us some converts.

]]>By: random guyhttp://www.theagitator.com/2011/01/30/comment-of-the-day-7/comment-page-1/#comment-601612
Mon, 31 Jan 2011 05:13:48 +0000http://www.theagitator.com/?p=18979#comment-601612BSK, I think you’re asking for some over-arching rules that simply can’t exist. The entire reason for law suits is so that each side can present their case in a (hopefully) impartial court. Whether harm was done or damages need to be corrected is for that court to decide. Trying to come up with some blanket rules about which cases are legitimate and what settlements are too excessive a priori undermines the process.

Undoubtedly some improvements can be made in tort reform, I’m not arguing that the current system is as good as it gets. But no matter what rules we decide upon, someone will be disenfranchised. Where one set of rules benefits a case they may be detrimental to another. Not everyone will get their day in court, not every settlement will be just, and many wrongs will go un-righted. It’s sad, but its a necessary concession to reality and the limits of the justice system that we all have to live with.

Universal justice is a noble ideal and an unreachable goal.

]]>By: Highwayhttp://www.theagitator.com/2011/01/30/comment-of-the-day-7/comment-page-1/#comment-601470
Mon, 31 Jan 2011 04:03:12 +0000http://www.theagitator.com/?p=18979#comment-601470The problem with the area this is getting into is that there is no way to make something ‘idiot-proof’. As they say, if you try to make it idiot-proof, they’ll just make a better idiot.

So the question becomes more: Was the item used in the specified manner, and if so, was it known that there is a risk in using it in the specified manner? For instance, a ladder can fail if you overload it. That would be outside the specification. But the same ladder can also fail with a weight that’s under the limit if you don’t maintain it, or it’s damaged in another way.

You can’t expect a company to make “every effort” to make something idiot proof. I think there does need to be responsibility on the part of every user of every product to know how to use that product in a responsible manner within the limits of its design. If products fail when used within the specifications, then there are definitely liability issues. But if they fail when used outside those specifications, that’s a different story.

]]>By: James J.B.http://www.theagitator.com/2011/01/30/comment-of-the-day-7/comment-page-1/#comment-601437
Mon, 31 Jan 2011 03:48:45 +0000http://www.theagitator.com/?p=18979#comment-601437What is more liberty oriented than 2 individuals settling dispute in a objective forum. Wanna avoid gunfights with CEOs, don’t limit damages. Otherwise without such limits you risk violent self help when the harm is great and the victim or family has little to lose..

Buyer beware is no good. People will not buy product if we have to worry if they are deadly. Eg imagine if lg made explosive tvs where 1 of 100 tvs exploded. You as the buyer may not be able to open up the tv and check it. If lg worries about punitive and regular damages the CEO will act to limit the defect.

My hunch was it was not representative of libertarianism. I remember having some discussions over on the boards at Positive Liberty (with commenters, not the blogger themselves) in which a few people felt that fraud should not be a punishable offense and that the market would correct against fraudulent companies by offering independent consumer protections and the like. I seemed to be the sole voice of disagreement, which led me to believe this might have been a more widely held libertarian belief, even though it didn’t jibe with my understanding of the overarching philosophy.

While I think it’s clear we agree on the immorality of fraud, do you think that punitive damages can be sought in cases where fraud didn’t exist, but things just didn’t go as planned? How legitimate are claims of negligence directed towards companies that don’t make every effort to make their products idiot proof? Or claims where things just break? I’m curious where you’d draw (and others) would draw the line with regards to when a lawsuit seeking damages is legitimate and when the losses should be assessed to the consumer and chalked up to the inherent risk of any product and purchase. I don’t ask this to be argumentative… I am generally curious. I don’t know where I’d personally draw the line, but I think it is a relevant part of the conversation when we are talking about ways for the market to stimulate better business practices.

]]>By: Radley Balkohttp://www.theagitator.com/2011/01/30/comment-of-the-day-7/comment-page-1/#comment-601263
Mon, 31 Jan 2011 02:46:18 +0000http://www.theagitator.com/?p=18979#comment-601263 I’ve even seen it extended to say that deliberately misleading or untrue advertising is okay, again arguing on behalf of a “buyer beware” philosophy.

Show me a libertarian who has made that argument. False advertising is fraud. I don’t know of any libertarians who who would say otherwise.

There is an argument to be made that punitive damages can be excessive, and go well beyond making whole people who were wronged. I’m okay with some form of punitives, although I think they should be capped.

I’ve seen some libertarians argue that, ideally, lawsuits should happen far less frequently and be less effective than they are now. The argument seemed to be that the onus is on the purchaser to be diligent and, if he buys an unsafe product, he assumes that risk. I’ve even seen it extended to say that deliberately misleading or untrue advertising is okay, again arguing on behalf of a “buyer beware” philosophy.

I don’t know how representative this is of other libertarians or libertarian thoughts in general (I do realize that libertarians are not monolithic, so I’m sure there is room for disagreement here), but it definitely indicates that this current form of pressure might not exist in a more libertarian world.

]]>By: James J.B.http://www.theagitator.com/2011/01/30/comment-of-the-day-7/comment-page-1/#comment-601065
Mon, 31 Jan 2011 01:25:04 +0000http://www.theagitator.com/?p=18979#comment-601065Here is another libertarian way safety is improved in the past 30 yrs – lawsuits. Companies have to worry about not just the bottom line – also whether their product is safe.
]]>By: Episiarchhttp://www.theagitator.com/2011/01/30/comment-of-the-day-7/comment-page-1/#comment-601049
Mon, 31 Jan 2011 01:20:33 +0000http://www.theagitator.com/?p=18979#comment-601049The most vile thing to say to a partisan is to identify him as being no different from his favorite enemy. Which is pretty much all libertarians have the power to do these days.

Absolutely. But I will admit that we’ve been going further than that recently; many of us are actively rubbing their noses in their partisanship, and they hate it. Which makes it all that much more fun.